Bruce and Cat: Mad as a Hatter
by The-Riddler95
Summary: Bruce, Selina, and Alfred meet Shihan Matsuda for the first time, a mysterious man who's past is tied to Thomas and Martha Wayne, but whether those ties were for the better or worse isn't clear. But when a man named Adrian Boles turns a section of Gotham City into his gang's own chaotic playground, Bruce and Selina have to decide whether Matsuda can or can't be trusted.


**This story is the fourth official installment of the Bruce and Cat series. It follows Bruce and Cat: Lazarus, but doesn't necessarily need to be read in that order. The correct order can be found on my profile page along with the rest of the stories.**

To the rest of the world, the districts of Gotham city are named after the resource they're associated with producing. It was a quick and efficient way of mapping out the city into five sections, the Industrial, Oil, Greenhouse, City, and River districts. If you were well-versed in Gotham's history, you would call them their original names – the names of Gotham's five founding families. If you lived in the city though, you'd know that the most famous names of the districts reflect the most famous crime that happened in them. The Mushroom District was nicknamed so because of the mushroom trade that ruled for years before they were exterminated by Maroni's men. The Roman District is named after Carmine 'The Roman' Falcone, dedicated to the fifty years of tyranny that he laid to that district in particular. There's just something about tragedy that captivates people more than anything else. The thing that worries the rest of the country about Gothamites is that the crime never stops, which alludes to one thing. It's not the tragedy that captivates people; it's the criminals responsible for the tragedy. The districts aren't named after the tragedies – they're named after the monsters that caused them.

Six months had passed since the Lazarus pit incident. Something like that changed Gotham. Crime was becoming less common in recent months. It was like the people of Gotham had a newfound appreciation for being alive. Not everything was told to the public, but enough was made known.

Somehow, Selina's visits to Wayne Manor had become less frequent. They had gradually gone from once a week to once a month, and finally a full month had passed without any sign of Selina Kyle at the manor. It worried Bruce a bit. He worried that she had grown tired of him. It worried Selina too. She couldn't think of a reason to visit, and that didn't help her ideas of being addicted to the chaos.

Selina was walking along the highway. It was warm out, and she hadn't had a source of exercise in a while. Bruce had been supplying her source of food for the past few months. Her eyes stayed on the concrete in front of her. Her plan was to follow the highway straight ahead for a few hours and then turn back.

She only looked up when a grey car pulled over and stopped a few feet in front of her. The door opened and a man stepped out. Selina prepared herself in case the man was dangerous.

He had long, black hair tied in a ponytail at the back of his head and a long, black beard that was tied into sections. He looked old and tired and wore a black suit and tie.

"Excuse me." He said, looking at Selina with a blank gaze. "Might you be able to point me to Wayne Manor?"

Selina perked up an eyebrow. People tried to find Wayne Manor all the time, and a few didn't have good intentions for it. "Who the hell's asking?"

The man nodded, "My name is Shihan Matsuda. I was an accomplice of Thomas Wayne years ago. I heard he passed away, I'm in Gotham to express my condolences."

Selina laughed a bit. "You know, you're a few years late, bub."

Shihan closed his eyes. "My apologies. I was quite difficult to contact for a period of time. You talk like a friend of the Waynes. Do you know Martha?"

"Sorry, man. She's dead too. Only Wayne around here is Bruce."

"I wasn't aware. Is Bruce Thomas' brother?"

Selina leaned back in suspicion. "Son. Still want to talk to him?"

Shihan thought for a while. "Of course. I can take you there as well if you wish."

Selina relaxed herself. If the guy was going to steal some money, she was going to come along to warn Bruce or whatever. She would be able to fight off Shihan anyway. She made sure to keep the car door unlocked so she could jump out if he tried anything. She pointed down the street, and Shihan started the car up again.

* * *

Martha Wayne used to sing her son a little song every night before he went to sleep. It was the only song she knew, but it was okay because it was Bruce's favorite. It had five verses, each one with a variation of only a few words, but enough to tell the story. That story involved a little baby mouse who would go out to get food and always return to his hole in the ground. He would be attacked and chased, but he'd always return to his cozy hole in the ground where he was safe. One day, he outgrew the hole and couldn't hide in it anymore. He had to go out into the world and face what he was running from, but then he realized he had also outgrown his worries. The spiders that wanted to eat him now ran away from him out of fear of being eaten themselves. The song stopped there.

Bruce never believed the song. He thought his parents would always be there for him. When his parents died, Bruce didn't know they had died. He was just a little boy. He only realized that his life had changed when the pearls that were ripped from his mother's necklace stopped bouncing on the concrete, the melodic shimmering of the jewels coming to an eerie silence. For Bruce, that was when the song stopped. That was when everything changed and the world somehow grew ten times bigger. Maybe if Bruce had believed the song, the world wouldn't have seemed that big.

Bruce was looking at the board that he had in his study. It was the board that had everything that he knew about his parents on it. Of course he had them all in folders on his desk and in the secret cave too, but putting them on a board just put it into perspective. The board was cluttered and messy and incoherent, and that reminded him of how big the world looked right then, as he peered down the dark alley at the man who had ended his parent's life running down the street. Bruce wasn't even looking for anything on the board, just like he wasn't looking for anything then.

Down the manor, Alfred had just heard the doorbell ring and he looked through the window on the door to see who it was. Right there, he almost fell over. His knees almost buckled at what he saw. It couldn't be.

When he opened the door, Alfred regained his composure, but his guests had already seen his reaction. He took a deep breath and managed to stutter, "Master Matsuda – what brings you back to Gotham?"

"Master?" Selina asked.

Shihan nodded. "Alfred, it's good to see you again. I'm so sorry about the loss of Thomas and Martha. May I speak to their son?"

Alfred shook his head so fast it looked like a twitch. "I can forgive your lapse in manners considering where you've been all these years, but I'm afraid Master Bruce would be far better off if you didn't. Best be on your way, mate."

"Who is it, Alfred?" Bruce asked, as he was coming down to the front door. The door always was fairly noisy.

Shihan took a deep breath and looked at the boy in front of him. He couldn't say anything for a long time. He just breathed. Finally, he sighed, "You look exactly like your father."

Bruce inched closer down the steps to stand next to Shihan. He was perplexed at the man's appearance. "How did you know my father?"

"Thomas never had friends," Shihan laughed. "Except for me. I knew him better than anyone else, even his own wife. Excuse me, I'm amazed at you. It's like I'm a teenager again stepping into this manor for the first time, except you're... not your father. Please, may I come inside?"

Bruce looked to Alfred, who was trying as hard as he could to say _no_ without actually saying anything. Bruce ignored him and turned back to Shihan. "Of course. Alfred, could you make our guest some tea?"

Shihan followed Bruce inside, and Selina followed him. She whispered to Alfred, "Found him on the side of the road."

Shihan sat down on the couch, Bruce sitting across from him on the comfy chair. Something about Shihan just struck him as odd. He was wearing a suit, but his body was so broad. He sat straight up and he looked... it was strange. There was a look in Bruce's father's eye when he was working that Bruce could never describe. It was weary and intense and miserable all at once. Shihan had the exact same look.

"My name is Shihan Matsuda." He said. "I was a friend of your father."

Bruce nodded skeptically while Selina leaned on the chair next to him. "I didn't think my father had friends."

"But we were. We went to school together. We became friends when he invited me here to work on his assignment. I still remember this place. Then when we grew up, he moved to Japan with me for years to study peace. We lived like hermits in the mountains and ate whatever we hunted down for almost a year. It was gruelling and painful and I got to live every second of it with my best friend. I thought we would have lived like that forever if it wasn't for-"

"If it wasn't for me?" Bruce said.

Shihan closed his eyes. "Your mother was studying religion in the countryside opposite to the mountains. Martha went to college with us and when your father saw her again in Japan, he thought it was fate. They moved back to Gotham when Martha was pregnant with you. It was a dangerous and risky place to raise a child, but so was their only other option – the Japanese countryside."

Bruce nodded. A chill ran up his spine when Shihan said that. "My father told me that once."

"He left when he said he had a son. That was the last I saw of him for sixteen years. In that time, he took back his father's company, he had a happy life, and he raised a strong, amazing son. You can't imagine my pain at his passing."

"So why come here now?" Bruce asked.

"I committed to living sixteen years alone in the mountains on just my own wits, and that time recently ended. I looked up my old friend, and heard of his passing. I came to express my condolences. No one knew your father more than me."

Selina laughed a bit. "Why go up in the mountains?"

Shihan smiled back as if he was thinking about something. "Thomas and I were plagued by something that hunted us down our entire lives and was closing in faster than we could run away."

"What was that?" Bruce asked.

"The truth." Shihan said. "To Thomas, we were little kids living in our fantasy world and soon, the truth would catch up to us and tear us down. We ran away Japan when we were twenty, still young and reckless. All we wanted then was happiness, and that was the only way we could find it. But eventually, it wasn't enough for Thomas. He couldn't leave behind the truth. For some reason, he had to go back and find it. From what I hear, he found it, and it shot him in the chest."

Alfred came in and put a cup of tea on the table in front of Shihan and Bruce. He shifted uncomfortably and said, "Well, there's no use in plaguing the young boy with stories about his father. So, Mr. Matsuda – I suggest you drink your tea and be on your way. I'll call you a taxi."

"No." Bruce said, making Alfred freeze. "Mr. Matsuda, you were a friend of my father's. I will look into your background some more, but if you're telling us the truth, you're a part of the family. You can sleep in the guest room tonight and we'll figure something out from there."

Shihan nodded, "Thank you, Mr. Wayne. Selina, would you kindly show me to my room?"

Selina threw her head back and sighed, "I could have gone my entire life without someone telling me to show them to their room." She started up the stairs to the manor's guest room, and Shihan followed.

Alfred waited until the footsteps disappeared and then turned to Bruce. "Are you out of your bloody mind?"

"He was a friend of my father's." Bruce snapped back automatically, standing up.

Alfred turned his head and chuckled sarcastically. "And if a man with a chainsaw appeared claiming to be your father's fairy godmother, would you let him stay in the manor?"

"So you've never heard of him before?" Bruce asked.

"Of course I have. I've sat through countless stories about his and your father's romps in high school, their college parties, and hikes in the mountains. They'd known each other their entire lives – they were practically brothers. It broke Master Wayne's heart when he had to abandon his old friend and move here with your mum, but thank god he did. Shihan Matsuda is the worst thing that ever happened to him."

Bruce nodded skeptically. "And you know this about my father?"

"Thomas Wayne hired me as soon as he got back in Gotham, and on my first day on the job, he wouldn't stop talking about the crazy old Japanese hermit who made him run away from everything. Matsuda gave him the idea to run away from the company, abandon Martha, and live in the mountains for a year like a deluded old monk. Shihan Matsuda was a blight upon this family and all of our lives would be much better off if you told him to crawl back into whatever cave he came out of."

"Alfred, I can't do that." Bruce said. "If he's my father's closest friend, then he knows more about him than anyone else. He could be the key to figuring out who killed my parents."

"Oh, this old tune." Alfred growled. "He can stay for a week at the most. And I'd advise you to sleep with a gun under your pillow. God knows I will."

Alfred turned and started to walk away when Bruce raised his voice a bit. "Maybe if my father listened to Matsuda instead of you, he'd still be alive."

Bruce wanted to apologize for saying that right away, but he kept it inside himself. Alfred turned back around and sighed, "Thomas Wayne never listened to anyone. Every decision he ever made, he made himself." With that, Alfred disappeared into the kitchen and Bruce sat back down with his face in his hands.

* * *

Selina opened the door of the Wayne's guest room and Shihan looked around. He put on a pair of the slippers next to the door and turned back to Selina. "How do you know the Waynes?"

"I don't." Selina said. "I've punched Bruce in the face because he got too cocky about being a Wayne. I don't like rich people too much."

Shihan raised an eyebrow. "Why?"

"I just figured there are kids out on the streets starving their asses off and these people are hiding in their mansions buying gold-plated tissues."

"There are plenty of reasons why a wealthy person can't donate all of their money." Shihan said.

Selina nodded. "I know. But that's what it looks like from the outside looking in."

Shihan lay down on his bed and closed his eyes. "So what does it look like from the inside looking out?"

"Why do you care?"

"No reason. It's just that sixteen years in the mountains teaches you a lot of things. One of those things is not to hate a human being that you can't change. Are you Bruce's only friend?"

Selina laughed a bit. "Bruce doesn't have a lot of friends. That's because the time that usually goes into friends is used for figuring out his parent's murder. He spends a lot of time on that. Since you're his father's best friend or whatever, you'll be able to hurt him pretty easily. I'm just going to let you know right now that if you do hurt him, you're going to die."

Shihan sat up and sighed. "If Bruce Wayne is anything like his father, then there's not a thing on earth that can truly hurt him except himself."

Selina scoffed and turned for the window. There was a set of loose stones in the wall that she had learned to climb down with her eyes closed. When her feet touched the ground, she looked out at the front gate. She wandered around a lot recently.

She started on. Selina decided that she would head towards the city square. There was a lot of commotion there. You could get away with a lot there. She had just started on the way when there was something moving fast on the other side of the gate. She couldn't see exactly what, but Selina guessed it was a car. In a second, Selina heard the screeching sound of car tires on the road and sparks flying over the fence as there was a huge crash, a giant, deafening crash that she could have heard halfway around the world.

A few minutes passed and there was only silence. Selina decided it was safe to inch closer. She slowly ran across the yard and climbed over the gate.

A green car had been flipped onto its side not too far from the manor. The skid marks behind it were almost flaming. The side of the car had been completely smashed in and all of the windows had been shattered. The airbags hung like limp balloons and a door had torn off and lay on the floor. The front of the car looked like paper smashed into brick.

Selina knelt down to see if anyone was inside, and her jaw dropped. There were three people inside. A man and woman in the front, and a little girl, maybe twelve years old was lying in the backseat. All of their faces were bloody and the little girl's eyes hung open. There wasn't a doubt that she was dead.

But breathing was coming from the front seat. Selina jumped when she heard the quiet, steady breathing. It was the man. He was skinny, with messy red hair and crooked teeth, a blue dress shirt hanging off his body. His arms were still tangled up in the steering wheel, one bent in a way it wasn't supposed to be and held in place by the seat belt. His eyes fluttered open as he cried in pain.

"Are you okay?" Selina asked.

The man looked around. He frantically stared at everything around him, and Selina saw his eyes shut as he desperately started whispering, as if in a trance, "No, no, no, no, no,"

Ten minutes had passed, and Detective Gordon had brought a squad to set up a crime scene. Bruce and Alfred had been brought out for questioning, but they'd never seen the victims before in their lives. The sole survivor of the crash, the man with the crooked teeth, was sitting by the corner wrapped in a blanket. He had been whispering _no_ to himself non-stop. Police had dragged out the woman and the little girl, both blonde and dressed like they had an occasion.

"His name is Adrian Boles." Gordon said when Bruce asked. "He was the only one that survived. A blood test we did suggests he was intoxicated while driving. We ID'd the two bodies as his wife and daughter, Samantha and Alice."

"What's going to happen to Mr. Boles?" Alfred asked.

Gordon sighed, "He killed two people with reckless driving. He'll be serving time in Blackgate as the courts see fit."

"I think that's fair." Bruce said.

"Crime scene is fairly cut and dry, though we'd like to keep it up for a few more hours for evidence. The tape should be gone when you wake up next morning. If it's alright with you, could I see you in a few hours for witness statements?"

Bruce nodded. "That's fine."

Gordon went back to taking pictures for evidence, and Bruce, Selina, and Alfred went back into the manor to leave the police to their work.

"Poor fellow," Alfred sighed. "His wife and daughter – gone."

When the three came back into the manor, Alfred's jaw dropped open slightly. The fireplace had been slid to one side to reveal the entrance to Thomas Wayne's secret office, and the remote control that operated it was lying on the coffee table when it had always been hidden in Marcus Aurelius' biography. When Alfred peered down the stairs, he saw the lights were on.

"Alfred," Bruce said, trying to get his attention before he grabbed a shotgun off the wall and went down the stairs carefully.

Selina laughed a bit, "Your butler is a piece of work, isn't he?"

Alfred jumped down the final stair and pointed his shotgun at whoever was down there, and growled slightly when he saw Shihan Matsuda standing with his hands behind his back staring at a sword on the wall.

"How did you know about the cave?" Alfred growled.

Shihan sighed. "Bruce, did you know that your father was also an orphan for most of his life?" he waited for Bruce to slowly shake his head before continuing. "William Thomas Wayne, your grandfather, was a war general. He built this bunker to hide from his enemies, but he knew he wouldn't be able to hide forever. He died in war. Your grandmother left your father when her husband died; she never felt any attachment to Thomas other than being William's son. He was raised by his uncle since he was a boy. I never found out what he did to his father's bunker."

Bruce nodded, "Mr. Matsuda, if it's alright with you, may I ask you some questions about my father? I just... never really got to know him."

"Of course, Mr. Wayne. And if it's alright with you, I'd like to take the sword framed on the wall. It's mine. It was a sort of parting gift I gave your father when he left Japan. He always meant to give it back to me."

"Like hell he did." Alfred growled under his breath, just enough for Bruce to hear.

Bruce stepped a bit away from Alfred and towards Shihan. "Of course."

Shihan bowed in respect. "Thank you. I will meet you downstairs in a bit so you can ask me whatever you want about your father.

Bruce nodded and started to leave when Selina held him back. "So when were you going to tell me you had a secret bachelor pad?"

"Sorry," Bruce said. "If you could keep this a secret-"

"Honestly, B," Selina sighed, "This is exactly the kind of thing I'd expect from you."

In the week following, Alfred mostly stayed in his room to be away from Shihan. Selina slept in Bruce's room with him half the time and on the roof the other half. Bruce meanwhile, periodically spent hours every day listening to Shihan's stories about Thomas Wayne. Bruce was so little when his father died that they had so little memories together. It was so mesmerizing to hear about his father. It was like he was still alive, and they were still making memories together. Shihan told him about Thomas' search for happiness and his reuniting with his true love, but also about things like the two of them throwing eggs at their teacher's house when they were kids, or Thomas' high school crush on a girl named Elizabeth. Even Alfred didn't know half of those things. Shihan and Thomas had spent so much time together that the idiosyncrasies could trick Bruce into thinking his father was still sitting in front of him, telling him stories.

When the week was over, Shihan had to leave. Bruce made it clear that it was his house and not Alfred's and Shihan could stay however long he wanted, but Shihan also wanted to go. The city wasn't for him. He was going back to his parent's place in Japan to see them, and then go wherever life took him. There was a chance he would visit again.

Right before Shihan was about to leave, Alfred put on a coat and said to Bruce, "I received a phone call from the post office saying an important package arrived for us from Wayne Enterprises. Do you know anything about that?"

Bruce shook his head. "No."

Alfred shrugged, "Well in any case, they said the shipping trucks weren't working for some reason, so I have to go into town and pick it up. I'll be back in a jiffy. Mr. Matsuda, I trust you'll be gone once I get back?"

"As you wish." Shihan said.

Alfred nodded and left for the garage.

Shihan bowed to Bruce and said, "I'll take my leave now. Thank you, Bruce. Talking to you makes me feel like I'm a child again, running around town square with Thomas and talking to him at night."

"I should thank you." Bruce nodded. "If you ever feel like you want to come back to Gotham, you're more than welcome to stay here again."

"Do you know where Miss Kyle is?"

Bruce shrugged. "She has a mind of her own."

"Say goodbye to her for me, won't you?" Without waiting for a reply, Shihan left out the front door and begun the long walk into town for the bus station.

A few minutes passed, and Bruce slumped back in a chair in the study just to wait. Shihan leaving almost felt like losing his father again. Five minutes passed, then ten, and fifteen, and then half an hour. It usually only twenty minutes to drive into town. There must have been heavy traffic. After forty minutes passed with eerie silence, Selina appeared out of the window and said, "Hey, Bruce."

Bruce looked up and smiled a little, "Hi, Selina. It's good to see you."

"You look like you have a heavy heart." Selina said. "Are you okay?"

Bruce nodded. "I'm alright. Do you mind just being here? I need someone to be with right now."

"Sure." Selina sat down on the couch closest to Bruce. She knew he wouldn't want to talk about how he felt, so she tried her best to change the subject. "So is there any reason Wayne Enterprises sent an important package to every single person on this side of town?"

Bruce furrowed his brow, confused, "Wait, what do you mean?"

Selina shrugged. "Well, probably not every person, but when I was walking down the street, I heard like twenty people saying they had to drive to the post office and get an urgent package. You didn't know about that?"

"No." Bruce said. "Alfred said the same thing. He left forty minutes ago."

"Well, the streets are jammed. Weird."

A few more minutes passed with the two of them making idle conversation, and suddenly, the phone rang. Bruce picked it up expecting to hear Alfred, but instead, he heard someone's voice disguised by a microphone saying, "Turn on the television," over and over.

Selina wrinkled her nose suspiciously and grabbed the remote control to turn on the television. She raised the volume, but couldn't change the channel. It just showed a blurry feed of a man. The feed only showed him from the waist up and showed him in a dark room full of video monitors showing feeds from twenty security cameras surveying the streets. When the feed cleared up the tiniest bit, Bruce and Selina recognized the man as Adrian Boles, the man who survived the car crash.

Boles was wearing a long, green coat and a black top hat that was much too big for his head. He had bloody scratches all over his face and looked like he hadn't eaten or slept in days. He cleared his throat and started, in his high, hoarse voice,

"Hello, Gotham. What fun we're going to have. My name is the Mad Hatter, and I speak on behalf of this city's liberators, the Wonderland Gang. We're here to have a tea party. That's all we want. But to have to tea party, we're going to need Wonderland! And you know what the best part is? If you're watching this, you're in it already! That's right, the entire west district of Gotham is now Wonderland. And if you're in it, the Wonderland Gang now owns you. Now, the heat signatures tell me that there are still three hundred and eighty-four of you guys in Wonderland. That's okay, no harm done! You don't have to feel bad at all! If our fake phone call didn't get you out, the Wonderland Gang will. And if you think that you can escape us, then you can tell that to the bombs we have lined up underground all around the perimeter of the west district.

"That's right, guys. No one gets in, and no one gets out! Now just hang in there and have fun in Wonderland while we do our thing. Don't worry; Gotham's very first Un-Birthday party will happen very soon. Just hold on to your hats, folks!"

The video played itself over and over again.

 **The next chapter will hopefully come out next month. If you're wondering, Shihan Matsuda is based off of one of Bruce Wayne's original trainers in the comics, but he wasn't as he is in this story. The Mad Hatter is not my character, but Adrian Boles is. The reason I had to change his name will make sense soon. And if you're going to get mad that I changed his name, why are you even watching Gotham?**


End file.
